Feminist Acts

When a relationship ends, coercive control doesn't end with it. 

Sometimes the perpetrator finds a new weapon. Often it's the legal system itself. 

They flood their ex-partner with paperwork, they book up every available lawyer in a rural town so there's no one left to represent the other side. They drag everything back to court. 

It's called systems abuse, and Australian courts don't currently recognise it as a form of family violence.

So how do we name something that hides behind legitimate legal processes? 

A recent law graduate rewrote the law to recognise systems abuse as family violence in its own right, with penalties attached.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What "systems abuse" is, and how perpetrators weaponise legal process to keep controlling ex-partners after separation
• How someone can draft some of the most striking feminist legislation in this series, despite not identifying as a "feminist"
• What changes when we teach law students to draft legislation, not just study it

Guests:

• Clarrissa Carson, Law Graduate at AjG Family Law

Host:

• Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

Download the full book for free (open access):
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear

The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice 

Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch
Published by Routledge
Copyright 2025

You can find out a little more about legal and other forms of systems abuse in the National Domestic and Family Violence Benchbook (2025). 

This benchbook is a resource for the education and training of judicial officers (judges) so as to promote best practice and improve consistency in judicial decision-making and court experiences for victims in cases involving domestic and family violence across Australia.  

Produced by Miniature

One in ten Australians work in construction. But it has the worst gender equity in the country. 

Only 13% of construction workers are women. Just 2.5% of tradespeople are women. Two-thirds of construction firms have zero women on their boards. 

The toxic culture that follows produces some of the worst rates of mental ill-health and suicide in any sector. On most building sites, there isn't a single bathroom for a woman to use.

So how do you change an industry that hasn't moved in thirty years? 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why hiring on "merit" in construction means hiring mates, and what happens when the mates are all blokes
• How the industry loses $8.3 billion every year by keeping women out
• What construction culture actually looks like for women (and why "you must be the stripper" is the opening line of this episode)

Guests:

• Professor Paula Gerber, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Rebecca Dickson, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Dr Valerie Francis, Founder, Constructing Equity

Hosts:

• Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Read Rebecca Dickson and Paula Gerber’s proposal for ambitious quotas for female participation in the construction industry that all contractors seeking to work on government projects must meet, along with a strict compliance regime to ensure that the goal is achieved
• Read Valerie Francis’ commentary responding to Bec and Paula’s proposal 
• Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA)  Gender Equality Scorecard 2024-25 (27 November 2025) which shows that just over half of companies in the construction industry have no women on boards (see page 34). mentioned by Bec.
• Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), Tackling the ‘pipeline problem’ in construction requires more than employer action (30 May 2024) discusses the kind of cultural change needed to achieve gender equality in the construction industry
• The National Association of Women in Construction which Paula helped to establish
• Building Pride, support and advocacy for LGBT+ identifying members of the construction and property industry mentioned by Paula
• Here’s a UK perspective on the ‘leaky pipeline’ for women architects, Women in architecture: the damaging workplace culture pushing talented professionals out by Lynne Mesher in The Conversation (2 October 2026)
• This piece that explains how Australia’s “macho” construction workplace cultures lead to poor mental health for the tradies who work in it: Risky business: how our ‘macho’ construction culture is killing tradies by Donna Moore in The Conversation (24 October 2019)
• The Electrical Trades Union report Nowhere to Go (2021), mentioned by Bec, which details unsanitary, unsafe, inaccessible and unsuitable toilet facilities for many construction workers and how this issue disproportionately impacts women
• One of the existing pieces of legislation Bec and Paula drew from for their Bill is the Local Jobs First Act 2003 (Vic) which requires the presence of locally-based apprentices and trainees and local supplies and labor in construction projects in the Australian State of Victoria.
• The other legislation that inspired Bec and Paula was the Gender Equality Act 2020 (Vic) which requires the Victorian public sector, local councils and universities to take action towards achieving workplace gender equality and consider and promote gender equality in their policies, programs and services.
• Norwegian rules for gender balance on boards mentioned by Paula took effect in 2025, which set a maximum number of board members of the same gender
• The Victorian government’s Building Equality Policy was discussed by Paula as an example of a program that uses procurement procedures to aim to create training and employment opportunities for women through government procurement on building, infrastructure, civil engineering and any other capital works projects
• Bec mentioned that the Property Council of Australia has a range of Diversity and Inclusion practices that, amongst other things, are designed to support more women to move into leadership positions
• Transport Australia (formerly Roads Australia)’s 2024 report Strength in Diversity: Empowering Women in the Transport Sector details how the transport supply chain can be changed to create a sustainable workforce that actively supports women at every level of operations and every part of the transport supply chain. 
• The Australian Cost of Doing Nothing Report (2021) demonstrates that urgent change is needed to address cultural issues within the construction industry that are costing the economy close to $8 billion annually due to workplace injuries, mental illness, suicide, long work hours and a lack of diversity
• Here’s a summary of the article Valerie wrote with Michelle Turner and Helen Lingard on men and work-life balance in the construction industry (2009)
• You can find the abstract of Valerie’s article on What influences professional women’s career advancement in construction? (2017) here
• And finally here is a study of women entering the construction trades Career pathways of women in construction: Boots on the ground (2022) from RMIT.

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

Download the full book for free (open access):

What would Parliament look like if it was remade by and for women?

Australia's first female parliamentarian was told Parliament was "no place for a woman". Her name was Edith Cowan. She got elected and helped change the laws governing women’s lives.

But within the chambers of Parliament itself, little has changed. 

Whether it's long stretches away from family, or the shouting matches of Question Time, Parliament still operates by rules designed around men’s lives. 

In this episode, we take on a political system that needs to change.

What if two people could share one MP’s job? What if Parliament made room for caring responsibilities, shared power and a different way of doing politics? 

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why getting more women elected is only part of the battle for better laws
• What trailblazing women who broke into politics and law can teach us about changing the rules
• How job-sharing MPs could open Parliament to more people and challenge the idea that power belongs to one person

Guest: 

• Professor Kim Rubenstein, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Business Government and Law, University of Canberra; Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney; Honorary Professor, ANU.

Hosts:

• Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

Download the full book for free (open access):
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear

The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice 

Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch
Published by Routledge
Copyright 2025

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Edith Cowan, Australia’s first female parliamentarian, the National Museum of Australia, (including some great classroom resources) 
• Catherine Helen Spence by The History Trust of South Australia 
• Joan Rosanove QC (1896-1974) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography
• Kim Rubenstein and Deborah Cass’ article, Representation/s of Women: Towards a Feminist Analysis of the Australian Constitutional System (1995) 
• Kim Rubenstein, Returning to ‘Representation/s of Women’: Feminist analysis
• and job-sharing as core constitutional concerns (2021)
• Job-sharing politicians: How two women want to change the system in the Australian Women’s Weekly (2025) 
• Two people want to share the job of MP for Higgins. Is it constitutional? By Anne Twomey, April 22 2024, The Conversation (Kim is preparing a response to this analysis in some forthcoming articles with an alternative view to Professor Twomey and the link will be provided when it is available).
• Marian Sawer uses the example of the passing of legislation about RU486 by a cross party group of female parliamentarians to discuss the representation of women in Westminster parliaments, What makes the substantive representation of women possible in a Westminster parliament? The story of RU486 in Australia (2012) 
• The Gender Legislative Index created by Ramona Vijeyarasa is a tool to rank and score legislation against global standards for women’s rights.
• Australian Human Rights Commission Set the Standard: Report on the Independent Review into Workplaces (2021)
• Trailblazing Women in the Law Project by Kim Rubenstein explores the stories of Australian women who broke barriers in the legal profession. The National Library of Australia has some great classroom resources based on the project.  
• Kim’s project Australian Women Lawyers as Active Citizens documents how women with law degrees have used the skills and experiences from their individual broader life experience, together with their law degree and various forms of practice, to have an impact on others in society as a form of active citizenship in the civic sphere more broadly.

This podcast was funded by Monash University through the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise).

Produced by Miniature

Toilets are ground zero in a global culture war. 

In this episode, we're using toilets as a lens to explore feminism, trans and gender diverse inclusion. In parts of Australia, local councils have introduced trans bathroom bans. Australia's National Construction Code only specifies male and female facilities. 

Gender diverse and trans people are forced to share toilets meant for people with a disability or compelled to use the wrong toilets. They face gender inequality that is made worse by other forms of discrimination. Meanwhile, women are still queueing, still doing caring work in bathrooms, still going without menstrual products and still using toilets as a sanctuary from male violence. 

So how do we navigate this highly sensitive issue? We rewrote the regulations so nobody loses access and everyone gains.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why toilets have become a flashpoint in the global culture war (and what North Carolina's bathroom bill cost the state in lost business)
• What an "all gender" facility actually looks like, and why it doesn't take anything away from women
• Why public toilets are civic infrastructure, and what happens when we stop investing in them

Guests:

• Dr Sean Mulcahy, Research Fellow, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University
• Professor Nicole Kalms, Department of Design and Founding Director of the XYX Lab, Monash University

Hosts:

• Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

You can read Sean’s proposal for modification of the National Construction Code to require all-gender sanitary facilities in public buildings.  

You can also read Nicole and Dr Laura’sMcVey’s commentary responding to Sean’s proposal. 

Download the full book for free (open access).

The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice 

Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch
Published by Routledge
Copyright 2025

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Sean’s 2026 piece about Law and the lavatory: Ruminations on bathroom bans, building plans and gender demands from the Alternative Law Review 
• About the Victorian Gender Equality Act
• Sean mentioned this study by Amira Hasenbush and colleagues in 2018 which shows there is no evidence of increase in harm to cisgender women from inclusive sanitary facilities 
• Sean also raised evidence (from Morgenroth and colleagues in 2024) to suggest that opposition to inclusive sanitary facilities can be motivated by prejudicial attitudes towards trans people rather than concerns about women’s safety
• Sean mentioned large scale studies (Crissman and colleagues in 2020 and Francis and colleagues in 2022) which show that most people are in favour of inclusive sanitary facilities
• Sean also referred to a study by Chaney and Sanchez in 2017 which showed that inclusive sanitary facilities are perceived to be safer by gender and racial minorities
• Summary of the reforms to the National Construction Code (May 2026) regarding sanitary facilities
• You can find out about Queer judgement projects here
• Niki mentioned this article by Bianca Fileborn and Lo Marshall from 2021 shows how well designed public toilets can improve safety, accessibility and comfort for everyone
• Article from the UK Independent in 2018 about how Unisex changing rooms put women at danger of sexual assault
• Nicole discussed how in 2023 they rolled back the gender neutral toilets policy in the UK 
• On the idea of a radical redesign of toilets suggested by Nicole, this 2021 piece by Megan Tyler advocates for a rethinking and radical redesign of public toilets to genuinely foster inclusion and takes into account the inequalities that women and girls face around the world
• Nicole referred to 2013 research by Sanchez De Mandariaga that shows the radical shift that would happen if we moved away from commuter-focused to carer-focussed transport (or you can watch this video by Professor Ines Sanchez De Madariaga)
• About Nicole’s new project about radically redesigning public toilets
• Read about the Tokyo Toilet Project 

This podcast was funded by Monash University through the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise).

Produced by Miniature

Australia's Constitution has no right to equality. It has no bill of rights. And our last attempt at constitutional change (the 2023 Voice referendum) failed.

So we set our sights on 2048. We've re-written the Constitution for a Women's Constitutional Convention 20+ years from now.

Our proposal includes a new preamble and a constitutional right to equality. 

It also includes quotas across Parliament, the Ministry, the courts and the public service, so that no single gender can ever hold more than 60% of the power.

The result is a Constitution built for everyone who lives under it.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why Australia's Constitution doesn't have a bill of rights (and what that means for you today)
• What the "Q word" is, why it's so controversial, and why we need it
• What the failed 2023 Voice referendum taught us about Australia's appetite for constitutional change

Guests:

• Associate Professor Kcasey McLoughlin, School of Law and Justice, University of Newcastle
• Associate Professor Yee-Fui Ng, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Emerita Professor Margaret Thornton, Australian National University

Hosts:

• Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

• You can find Kcasey and Yee-Fui’s full proposal to change the Australian Constitution here, in Chapter 3 of our book, ‘Re-writing and Re-imagining Rights: Enshrining Gender Equality in Australia's Constitution’ by Kcasey McLoughlin and Yee-Fui Ng
  
  
• You can find Margaret’s commentary on Kcasey and Yee-Fui's proposal in Chapter 3A of our book, ‘Commentary on Re-writing and Re-imagining Rights’ by Margaret Thornton.

Download the full book for free (open access):
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear

The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice 

Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch
Published by Routledge
Copyright 2025

Mentioned in this episode

• The Australian Constitution
• Professor Rainbow Murray on Reframing Gender Quotas as a Means of Improving Representation for All (2014)
• The Women’s Constitutional Convention 1998 on Australia becoming a republic
• On John Howard’s constitutional ‘mateship’ preamble proposal: Mark McKenna, First Words: A Brief History of Public Debate on a New Preamble to the Australian Constitution 1991-99 (2000)
• The 1999 republic referendum explained by the Museum of Australian Democracy
• 2023 Voice Referendum resources: a quick guide from the Parliamentary Library in the federal Parliament
• Uluṟu Statement from the Heart website
• Catharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women (Yale University Press, 1979)

This podcast was funded by Monash University through the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise).

Produced by Miniature.

Despite decades of law reform, there are still countless laws that discriminate against women, non-binary, trans, and gender diverse people. So we decided to rewrite the law.

We got together with 45 of Australia's leading legal minds: academics, lawyers, judges and activists. 

We set them to work for 7 years.

The result? 16 redrafted Australian laws, fully rewritten with the help of a parliamentary draftsperson, and ready to be introduced to any parliament that wants them. 

We've created something that can make people's lives better, in Australia and around the world.

And the best part? All these laws are rolled up into one easy-to-use guide - and it's completely free to download. (See below)

In this opening episode, you'll meet the team behind this project: Becky, Kate, Jamie and Heli.

You'll learn:

• The 16 areas of Australian law we have rewritten, across criminal, civil and constitutional law.
• How to use the book if you're an MP, policymaker, law reformer, academic or activist anywhere in the world.
• How a feminist legislation project differs from a feminist judgments project, and why that distinction matters.

Our hope is that lawmakers, academics and activists in Australia and around the world stop critiquing the law and start writing it better.

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

Download the full book for free (open access):
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear

Guests:

• Associate Professor Becky Batagol, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Professor Kate Seear, Deakin Law School, Deakin University
• Associate Professor Heli Askola, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Dr Jamie Walvisch, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Western Australia

The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice 

Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch
Published by Routledge
Copyright 2025

Resources:

Critical Judgment Projects: The online repository of the growing Feminist Judgments Projects and Critical Judgments Projects from across the world https://criticaljudgments.com/

Australian Feminist Judgments Project: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/australian-feminist-judgments-9781782255413/

Australian Indigenous Judgments Project
'Indigenous Legal Judgments: Bringing Indigenous Voices into Judicial Decision Making' Edited By Nicole Watson, Heather Douglas (2021) https://www.routledge.com/Indigenous-Legal-Judgments-Bringing-Indigenous-Voices-into-Judicial-Decision-Making/Watson-Douglas/p/book/9780367467456

'Aboriginal Storytelling and Judicial Decision Making' by Nicole Watson (2021) https://www.indigconlaw.org/home/aboriginal-storytelling-and-judicial-decision-making

This podcast was funded by Monash University through the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise).

Produced by Miniature

When someone applies for compensation after being a victim of crime, you'd think the system would be on their side. 

In Western Australia, the law has a different idea. It allows the assessor to reduce a victim's compensation based on their "behaviour, condition, attitude or disposition." 

In other words: did you bring it on yourself?

It's victim-blaming, written into law. It disproportionately harms women, LGBTQIA+ people, trans people and First Nations communities.

So we rewrote section 41. It's ready to be introduced into WA Parliament, and any other parliament that wants it. The result? A compensation system that asks one question: What harm have you suffered?

In this episode, you'll hear from Kate and Jamie, the authors of the law reform. They're joined by commentator Professor Jenny Morgan from Melbourne Law School, who thinks they should have gone even further. 

You'll learn:

• What a crimes compensation scheme is (and why for many victims it's the only acknowledgment they ever get).
• How section 41 quietly re-runs the old "she provoked me" defence inside a system that's meant to help victims heal.
• Why this law disproportionately harms women, LGBTQIA+ people, trans people and First Nations communities.
• What Jenny Morgan learned abolishing the provocation defence in Victoria, and why feminist law reformers can't afford to walk away once a law changes.

Guests:

• Dr Jamie Walvisch, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Western Australia
• Professor Jenny Morgan, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Hosts:

• Associate Professor Becky Batagol, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Professor Kate Seear, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Take action today:

The book is free! The provisions are drafted. Take them to your parliament. Adapt them for another jurisdiction. Or start your own feminist legislation project.

• You can find Kate, Jamie and Liza’s full proposal to amend crimes compensation law here, in Chapter 9 of our book, ‘Reconsidering the Role of the Victim in Criminal Injuries Compensation’

• You can find Jenny’s commentary on Kate, Jamie and Liza’s proposal in Chapter Chapter 9A of our book, ‘Commentary on Reconsidering the Role of the Victim in Criminal Injuries Compensation’

Download the full book for free (open access):
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear

Resources Mentioned in this Episode 

• Victorian Law Reform Commission, Defences to Homicide Report, Tabled in Parliament on 18 November 2004
• For a good explainer of how victims of crime schemes work in the context of sexual violence, see Chapter 16 of the Australian Law Reform Commission, Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence (2025, ALRC Report 143)
• The Australian Feminist Judgments Project is The Australian Feminist Judgments Project : Righting and Re-writing Law edited by Francesca Bartlett, Heather Douglas, Rosemary Hunter and Trish Luker (2014, Hart Publishing).
• The case involving the death of Julie Ramage was written about by former journalist Karen Kissane in her book, Silent Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage (2006).

This podcast was funded by Monash University through the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise).

Produced by Miniature.

The law has failed women for too long. We're done waiting for someone else to fix it.

Welcome to Feminist Acts. Every episode takes a different area of Australian law and rewrites it to improve the lives of women, trans and non-binary people.

In this series you'll hear deep-dives from legal experts who have completed law reform proposals, ready to be introduced into any parliament that wants them.

These laws have been rewritten and they're all in our book, which is completely free to download.

We're looking forward to having you on this law reform journey.

Hosts:

• Becky Batagol, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Kate Seear, Professor, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Take action today:

Download the full book for free (open access): https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003372462/feminist-legislation-project-becky-batagol-heli-askola-jamie-walvisch-kate-seear

The Feminist Legislation Project: Rewriting Laws for Gender-Based Justice
Edited By Becky Batagol, Kate Seear, Heli Askola, Jamie Walvisch
Published by Routledge
Copyright 2025

Produced by Miniature Podcasts